Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

How the globalisation in late capitalism reconfigures informal market, language and lifestyle in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire ? This paper examines the arrival of an international corporation of private hire taxi (equivalent to Uber) in the market of taxi meter and its effects on informal workers.

Paper long abstract

What happens when foreign capital and new technologies enter local markets in postcolonial Africa? How do they reorganize markets, linguistic practices, and the values associated with language? This paper examines a case of the commodification of language in Abidjan, where local French language practices acquire new values within a newly configured market of late capitalism.

In 2018, Yango—an international private hire taxi company operating through a mobile application and emblematic of this form of capitalism—entered the Abidjan market. It rapidly disrupted the traditional taxi sector, converted many taxi drivers into Yango drivers, and contributed to shifts in the use of Nouchi (Ivorian French argot) and what is locally referred to as 'bon français' (good French) during rides.

In this context, how has the arrival of Yango transformed the market and French language practices? What values are these linguistic registers associated with? I ground my analysis in the concept of the commodification of linguistic practices, which conceptualizes language as a form of economic exchange value within the globalized market of late capitalism (Heller, 2010; Duchêne & Heller, 2012; Heller & McElhinny, 2017).